About Mark
When I first became interested in This Business of Music and making and selling records, I acquired several books hoping to open the gate of Oz.
I remember one discussion of making and breaking a record and becoming a successful player in the business – the elusive “record magnate”. The matter is possible but this result is not for the less than exceptional. Success can be measured in many ways to suit the creator. In one context a joyous victory would be dropped as a nonperforming failure. I am a writer and an artist. The creating is important unto itself with its own motivation. But the ac of communicating finally is the goal. One hopes that the creation given life contributes to the lives of others. Some songs written by others hold great significance for us personally.
My experience with the music business started like a great many American “youngsters” with The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. I started first grade in 1964, that year for Christmas I asked Grandmummy, Mom’s mom, for the “Beatle Record”, Meet the Beatles. I had grown up, to that point, with a great deal of music in the house. Mom was a n accomplished pianist, had been a music major in college, had performed piano in the Miss America pageant. She had mastered the playing of the piano repertoire. Music was the cornerstone of her life. She taught classical piano and was the church organist. Mom mastered the playing of the piano repertoire. By this I mean any piece she could read the music, understand the language, and animate the piece with life. It is hard to understand what this meant. To understand music, beauty and mathematics as unity, and the skill to express it comes with incredible amounts of practice. It was inspiring like a wonderful star on a lovely crisp night – and seemed equally unattainable. She bought me a guitar when I was 12 or 13 and from that time until I was out of high school we performed together rather constantly and we had a very good time. Having her ever-present in my young life was developmentally quite liberating.
The Beatles really did it for me. My babysitters always loved to come to our house because I had the record. I sang I Want to Hold Your Hand for second grade show and tell. It was magical and seemingly effortless. It was a singular sound that did not seem to be comprised of parts or performances as such. I think I concluded that pop music was more about a spontaneous creation than about the discipline that I observed in Mom or her better students. Please note to understand music, beauty and mathematics as unity, and the skill to express it comes with incredible amounts of practice.
My first experience with a band came when I was very early high school with three of my friends. We decided to perform a few songs for a school talent show and called ourselves Solid Waste. We practiced a few times and learned a few songs by Credence, Crosby Stills and Nash, Iron Butterfly and such. The show went great, exceeding all expectations, and the school crowd seemed to go wild. We didn’t do much more with it – I think much of the reason for that was that I did not actually learn to play electric guitar – but still Solid Waste became a focal point of each of our self-images for years to come. It was about this time Tom started writing songs. I shortly followed suit.
Tom and I continued to write songs and actually improved at the craft.
By the time I was approaching thirty I had screwed up a good number of reasonably fine opportunities and, other than having continued to write maybe increasingly interesting songs, I was no closer to musical success. A breakthrough came when my friend Sean Kelly found a book available called This Business of Music. I immediately bought a copy and began studying. It was a striking new view on how everything I sought actually did happen. I studied it feeling liberated as I could set out with a plan. It gave me an understanding of copyright and publishing and of the working organization of players in the music business. I began forming my business entities, plugging into Billboard and such, and starting down the road to recording and marketing music.
I realized that I needed recordings of my songs. There was one professional studio in Stillwater, Lamb Recordings, owned by Mike Hufford. Lamb was a fairly nice studio based around a 16 track 2” format tape recorder. The typical session there was in production of a demo or lower budget recording whose benefactor had some commercial intent. Shortly before I began working with Mike at Lamb, Garth Brooks recorded the demos there that he took to Nashville – the rest being notable history. I didn’t know Mike other than by reputation. However his reputation was that he pretty much did things his way. I intended the process to go the way I wanted so I hired, as best I could, a producer, Tommy Thomas, proprietor of the neighborhood natural food store who represented himself as a drummer with some recording experience. Tommy did prove to be helpful and together we laid down some respectable basic tracks. Mike Hufford was a drummer first and among his peers it was Mike who took up recording and production. Along the way he had invested in building the studio.
Since no band had ever shaped these songs, creativity was the constant demand. I had planned an album, Breeder Reactor.
I carried the stack of two-inch tapes to Baltimore to mix Breeder Reactor at Sheffield Recording Studio with grammy nominated engineer Bill Mueller. We mixed Breeder Reactor with a Talking Heads type sound.
Shortly after finishing Breeder Reactor, by that I mean CDs in hand, living destitute at the cemetery, gasping to grasp the brass ring just out of sight. I went to work for the Oklahoma Wildlife Federation canvassing for environmental issues. It was there I met Regina bonding as life’s partners. She was part and parcel of all recording projects through Nine Ball.
My aspirations for this record were greater than my ability and experience as a younger man. There are other things to do – love songs, reflections of daily life, beautiful songs. Yet the goal of this work has always been a social and political statement of significance presented with timeless virtuoso instrumental interpretations. I have been fortunate to work with marvelously talented musicians who have been willing to believe, and to create from the soul.